Thursday, January 26, 2017

A Fast Track to Collapse?

Just a short little note. I just put this out there in a conversation today, but figured it was worth putting out there in general.
One of the things that has taken me a bit by surprise is the speed at which Trump is pushing through a fairly large slab of his promised agenda. I thought that he would be more into being some (imagined) object of adoration, bask in the glory, and sit in the big chair playing with hand puppets for at least a month or two. Nope. Wrong again, Ludi.
On reflection it makes perfect sense considering his psychological makeup: his proactivity fills that psychic hole at the heart of the narcissistic personality. He must, in his shark-like way, keep moving ever forward.
So how forward? When he is done putting little black check marks on his bullet point list, what does he do next with all of his new found executive power? How much does he tamper with longstanding trade agreements and intricate political relationships that took decades to develop? We are a very fragile global economy now, riddled with debt loads history has never before seen. When countries are dabbling with negative interest rates because of there being no other economic option that allows the trains to run on time, a bull in a china shop who changes his opinions more often than most people change their socks (who is now at the helm of the world's largest economy) is a recipe for disaster.
Things could happen a LOT quicker than even I imagined. We seem to be on a fast track to isolating ourselves in the most abrupt way imaginable. Not being a big fan of globalization (due to my understanding of resource issues and my general feeling that it's been a 30+ year race to the bottom for those of us who have to work to pay the bills AND that it's been a very efficient way of eating the planet), I see the potential outcomes as a very mixed bag. In one way...a weird and twisted way...it is a inadvertent step to relocalization...which is an inevitability if the climate does not spiral out of control and make ALL levels of civilization untenable. But this ham-fisted and brazen approach lacks the slightest bit of finesse and subtlety. These are the actions of a man who feels that he is bigger than reality...that reality must somehow bend to the will of his ego. It won't. And as we have raised the ire of so many across the planet with our ceaseless hegemonic antics over the decades since WWII, we have a good deal of resentment and ill will built up in our karmic bank account. At some point those who have had our version of democracy thrust upon them may decide that there is little left to gain by appeasing the bully anymore...especially now that cold-blooded functionaries have been replaced by hot-blooded ideologues.
Not that I want to alarm anyone (more than usual), but we may have mere months. I am surprised by the pace of this barrage. I will extend the caveat that my timing regarding world events has never been all that stellar, but damn...